Most models define safety culture as basic assumptions, attitudes, or values concerning organizational safety issues. When measuring safety cultures, many researchers have had their main focus on explicit safety‐critical attitudes and generally relied on specific survey instruments. It is questionable, however, whether self‐report measures can capture all aspects of organizational safety culture. Instead of getting direct answers, implicit measures rely on activating automatic attitudes derived from long‐term memory and measure the time it takes an individual to react to attitude‐evoking stimuli. This article deals with the relationship between implicit safety‐critical attitudes and safety culture. The first study involved the measurement of explicit and implicit safety‐critical attitudes from 376 participants working in various industries. The Implicit Association Test (IAT)—a latency‐based measurement approach—was applied to assess implicit safety‐critical attitudes. Explicit safety attitudes were measured by questionnaire. Implicit and explicit attitudes are both related to organizational safety performance indicators, such as data concerning accidents and near misses. The second study involved both types of safety‐critical attitudes that were used for predicting safety culture indicators on an individual level. An example of this is risk awareness. The first study's results show that explicit and implicit safety‐critical attitudes represent various aspects of an organizational safety culture and can be related to safety performance indicators on an organizational level. The second study's results indicate that implicitly measured attitudes have been better at predicting safety culture indicators on an individual level compared to explicit attitude. Recommendations for future research in the field of safety culture assessment are made. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

business ethics, ethical decision-making, implicit association test (IAT), implicit attitudes, implicit social cognition, mental processes, moral judgements,

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In many organizations, the performance of individuals and teams is negatively affected by human error. Studies have shown that these errors can be reduced or even prevented by learning from them and by developing an understanding of error causation and its consequences. The ability to detect, understand, and anticipate errors refers to situation awareness (SA). Although SA is not limited to human error and it is more closely linked with decision making, it is a prerequisite for error reduction in complex sociotechnical work settings. The main objectives of this study were threefold: First, a model that can explain the interrelations between human error, SA, and organizational learning in sociotechnical systems was developed. Secondly, functional and dysfunctional factors that affect human error, SA, and organizational learning were identified. Thirdly, a research methodology was selected and adapted to empirically test the model in a real-world sociotechnical task environment. To do so, an SA performance test and a human error questionnaire were used to examine SA and respective learning modes of 108 assembly-line workers in the manufacturing industry. The final test results supported the central assumptions of the applied model. The article concludes by discussing applications in the field of sociotechnical systems analysis, team training, human performance programs, and high-reliability organizations.

Several recommendations for future research and training development in the field of human factors training are made.

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Firefighters have to perform in high demanding environments, which require the ability to cope with stress. Research has shown that performance as well as stress reduction is affected by mental preparation strategies such visual imagery, activation, self-confidence, attentional control, relaxation, goal setting and self-talk. The outcome of mental preparation strategies is a psychological state called 'mental readiness'. Mental readiness emerged from sport psychology and was found to be important for performance improvements of top athletes. However, until now mental readiness has never been used to predict firefighter performance. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mental readiness dimensions and perceived stress, success and task performance of firefighters. A sample of 68 firefighters was surveyed. The mental readiness dimensions as well as performance and stress issues were measured with the Mental Readiness Scale (MRS). Correlations and multiple regression analyses showed mixed results. Some scales like self-talk and goal setting did not significantly correlate with performance, success or stress of firefighters, whereas other sub scales such as visual imagery, activation and attentional control showed medium to large effects. The results reveal that firefighters benefit differently from the specific mental preparation strategies. Some strategies help firefighters to cope with stress. Other strategies seem to improve task performance and success. The results can be used to design evidence-based mental training programs to improve firefighter's performance and stress reduction.

The construct 'Mental Readiness' has been used to explain variations in peak performance within different task environments. In particular, research, conducted in diverse work settings such as sports, military and medicine, integrated mental readiness dimensions to increase human performance in critical task episodes. Mental readiness is a complex construct which encompasses sub-dimensions such as attentional control, goal-setting, relaxation, activation, self-confidence, self-talk and imagery. So far, mental readiness has not been used to predict traffic safety and driving performance of young drivers in particular. However, young drivers are involved in a huge amount of traffic accidents and therefore represent a major threat to traffic safety. One explanation is that the insufficient driving performance of young drivers is due to a lack of mental readiness when they enter the street. In this paper, we present the development of a mental readiness measure for student drivers. Hence, 167 student drivers were surveyed regarding mental readiness dimensions, driving performance and perceived stress before and after their final driving test. Data analysis revealed acceptable and even excellent internal consistency of these subscales. A validation study with four safety-related criterion measures (objective driving performance, subjective assessment of driving performance, perceived stress during test preparation, and perceived stress during driving test) showed mixed results. While some scales did not significantly correlate with driving behavior and stress indicators, other subscales like attentional control revealed good prediction coefficients. The current results can be used to train young drivers in raising their mental readiness level which could affect driving performance and road safety positively. In addition, the transfer of the central outcomes of this study to other safety-critical task environments, are discussed.